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There looked to be a path leading into the wood, or they could skirt around it as it wasn’t too extensive. But time was running out and the vehicle was probably the best option.
Mattie worried at her lips with her teeth. She wanted to take a moment. It was just a bit too intense in that four-by-four right now, with Kane too damn close for comfort and the corporal seeing her every blush and flush, like there was something going on.
Especially when she and Kane had been doing so well at ensuring there was absolutely nothing going on at all.
‘You want to just walk on a bit further?’ he asked quietly.
She nodded, grateful that she didn’t have to say anything for him to understand. They walked in silence to the ruins, and he stopped on a rock whilst she pretended to take a tour around them. Catching her breath.
‘We’ll find thd next location and confirm it as the new scenario site, then we’ll be back at camp by nightfall,’ Kane assured her as they finally headed back to the four-by-four.
‘Right,’ she agreed.
She hoped so. They’d packed for staying out for the night, and normally she would have looked forward to the opportunity to be away from everything—even her beloved hospital—for a night.
But sleeping so close to Kane, with some random corporal acting like some kind of eighteenth-century chaperone—not that the poor kid knew it—wasn’t going to be something she relished.
Climbing back into the rear of the vehicle, she shoved one of the bergens to one side and rammed her legs into the space, telling herself that it was for the best. At least this way no contact with Kane would mean no temptation. And that could only be a good thing.
The vehicle rumbled off, their young driver briefed on the new co-ordinates, but they hadn’t been going for more than ten minutes when Mattie felt the vehicle pull to a halt. Carefully she leaned over the back of the seat.
‘Everything all right, Corporal?’
‘There are two tracks on the ground, ma’am, but only one on the map.’
Kane was out and taking a look before she could respond.
‘My instinct would be to take the higher one.’ He shrugged as he returned. ‘But there’s no clear indication which is best.’
Given the boggy nature of the ground, that would have been her instinct, too.
‘Agreed.’ She nodded. ‘But if we need to get out and continue on foot, I have no issues with that.’
‘Understood,’ Kane confirmed, hauling himself into the front seat this time, and taking the lead as any other WO2 might have done.
Sometimes, Mattie decided, there were definite disadvantages to being the CO. Not least the fact that it wasn’t always easy to just get in there and get your hands dirty.
And then, without warning, the four-by-four lurched sickeningly, throwing Mattie from her seat and almost slamming her head against the metal frames on the side of the vehicle. When they jerked to a halt, the off roader was at a worrying angle.
‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ The corporal’s agitated voice finally broke into the silence. ‘Sir?’
Mattie had no idea how she forced her protesting muscles back into action and push herself back up and onto her own seat. It didn’t mean she could talk, though.
‘Fine,’ Kane confirmed after half a beat. ‘What about you?’
‘Um...yeah...’ the young lad began before catching himself. ‘Yes, I think so, sir.’
Kane reached for the back door, swinging it open.
‘Okay, let’s assess the damage, shall we?’
Gathering herself together, Mattie followed him, leaping down on legs that she told herself weren’t shaking—and if they were, it was only because of the violence of the accident and nothing whatsoever to do with Kane.
And when she turned back to look, she almost convinced herself that it was true. A rear wheel of the four-by-four had apparently opened up a narrow fissure, not even deep enough for a person to fall into but certainly deep enough to trap a wheel. So whilst there was no imminent danger of it opening up and pulling the vehicle in, there was clearly no way they were going to be able to drive out of the situation.
‘It wasn’t on the map, either ma’am,’ the corporal told her anxiously.
‘No, I imagine not. These prairies are extensive and not every square inch of it will have been mapped. We’ll get to safety and call it in.’
